Bishop Part II

I've managed a few more adventures in Bishop.

Owens River Packraft...

Loaded packraft from the front

I put in at the Pleasant Valley Campground with my loaded packraft - loaded with not enough insulation and my bicycle. The Owens is pretty narrow, but it is also deep and squiggly. Sometimes it seemed like I was paddling down someones intestines. The current was weird too. I am used to rivers where as long as you go where the water goes you are mostly fine. This wasn't the case here, the current would head across the river to the bank and then go underwater. Then it would come up somewhere else and head sideways for a bit before heading down. Add in a lot of willows overhanging the banks and a few strainers (only a few went all the way across the river though) and it was definitely heads up paddling, especially the first day. The bicycle on the front of the boat didn't really help either, but it does open up some interesting trip possibilities and I could have taken out before the aqueduct had I not made it that far.

I paddled downstream for most of 2.5 days. I don't know how many river miles I went but it sure was a lot more than the straight line distance. I only took one longish break when I flipped in a water control structure and one of my dry bags got caught in the hydraulic. It got maytagged for about 15 minutes and finally got flushed perhaps because it got a hole in it. After I fished it out I stopped to dry things out for a while. Generally the days were warm to hot and the nights were cold. Unfortunately my sleeping pad developed some holes so I was without its padding. Combined with the early mornings, mosquitos, and cold nights I didn't sleep very well. Most of the time I was paddling into a strong headwind. Luckily the river wasn't very straight and usually had reeds and trees on the banks so I could usually pick a lee shore. When I was forced to paddle straight into the wind I just dug down and went as fast as I could. This didn't work in the one lake I had to paddle across. This was just painful.

I did see a lot of wildlife though, deer, beaver, some sort of weasel or otter? and lots and lots of birds - maybe 30 or so different kinds. Especially waterfowl and flycatchers and little warblers and lots of raptors.

interesting clouds

cloud detail

I took out at the start of the Los Angeles Aquedect about 10 miles south of Big Pine. Then I assembled the bike and strapped everything on it and headed back. For the first 5 miles on 395 I had a glorious tail wind and cruised along at around 20 mph, then it swung around to around 10 oclock (front left) and my pace went way down. If I believed that God micromanaged things I'd think he hated me, or maybe she is my personal trainer and thought my legs needed a bit of work after sitting for 2.5 days. I stopped off at the Keough hot ditch for a soak on the way back. I think the total biking distance was around 37 miles. The river had to be 2 or 3 times that.

Water intake for the LA Aqueduct

waterfall near where I was camping

I met up with Julie and got to catch up a bit and check out her cool house and garden. Then I did more bouldering at the Buttermilks and a bike - hike - ski - climb ascent of Basin Mountain - via the E couloir. This took longer than I thought it would, but I just checked and it is 13240 ft / 4036 m tall and I was starting around 6,600 ft, so that explains some of it. The weather wasn't very auspicious when I started with low clouds and a bit of snow, but the clouds rose as I did and I even got a fair amount of sun. The fresh snow was nice for skiing.

Basin Mt from a distance. I went up the middle and then up left on the snow and up the left skyline

Here I am on top

ski tracks on the descent - sure beats walking